Head’s Letters

Thursday 6 February 2025

Dear Parents

On Tuesday we welcomed a representative from the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, who are Phoenix’s house charity, to give a talk on the restoration of the wetland area of Chimney Meadows. It was fascinating to hear and see pictures of this successful project and find out about the number of species that have returned to the area since the project started in 2019.

This afternoon there is much anticipation for Griffin’s bake sale. I have seen some very impressive bakes and I will definitely be sampling some! Thank you to all of the parents, and children, who have helped bake such great treats for this event. We even had some cakes in APS colours!

Year 2 are very excited to continue their study of space with a visit to the planetarium at Abingdon School tomorrow. They have recently been learning about the Moon and other celestial bodies and seeing the solar system at the planetarium will bring it all to life even more clearly for them.

In the classroom this week I was very impressed with our whole Year 6 class ukulele group. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the children playing in unison and they really seemed to be enjoying learning how to play a new instrument.

In English lessons, Year 4 have been building on their class reader, ‘How to train a Dragon’ by creating their own dragon with special characteristics, with the aim of producing detailed reports on their skills and abilities, presented as an illustrated poster. Their descriptions of the dragons were hugely impressive and imaginative throughout.

In Science our Year 7s have been studying the reactivity of alkaline metals with water and there was great excitement when the sodium decided to produce a larger reaction than anticipated. The slight singe mark on the ceiling will rub off!

Hockey has taken centre stage on the sports field this week for many of the children, with matches for the U8s, U9s, U10s and U11s. Our U8s performed extremely strongly in their first ever hockey matches with a raft of impressive wins whilst the U10A team fought really hard to secure a well deserved draw. Our U13 team produced some fantastic performances at the regional IAPS hockey tournament at Charterhouse on Monday, finishing 11th out of the 20 schools attending, beating Cothill, Aldwickbury and Lambrook along the way. Our U11s are competing in their IAPS hockey tournament today at Tilsley Park and we wish them good luck for this. Our U12 and U13 footballers continued their impressive starts to the season with a thrilling 2-2 draw for the U12B team being the closest game of the week.

I am very much looking forward to the JPA Quiz night tomorrow and look forward to welcoming a number of you to the event, along with some of our Year 7 and 8 pupils. The staff team are hoping to repeat the closely fought victory they managed last year, although I think that may be a tall order! Huge thanks to our JPA team for organising it again. It will undoubtedly be a very enjoyable event.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 30 January 2025

Dear Parents

It seems to have been a week of downpours and storms, with a particularly sharp hailstorm on Monday! However, it was lovely to see the snowdrops starting to emerge in our forest school area.

The children were all involved in our termly ‘Big Think’ this week. The subject was music and the children had to think carefully and respond in a variety of ways to a broad selection of songs. It was so lovely to see the children, especially our Pre-Prep, dancing, drawing musical images and writing about how the music made them feel. These events offer a great opportunity for reflection and thinking about topics that may not always be at the forefront of the childrens’ thoughts.

On Monday and Tuesday twelve of our pupils undertook Lamda exams in a range of speaking categories including monologues and duologues. I know they have worked incredibly hard in the lead up to these and will have acquitted themselves very well with their performances. Two of our Year 8 pupils performed pieces for their music scholarships on Wednesday and we are very proud of their musical development over the past few years.

This morning was an opportunity for the four Houses to gather together for the much anticipated and enjoyable paper aeroplane competition. There were some different designs trialled this year which I had not come across before, with some more successful than others! However, we now have the winner from each house decided and they will compete in a fly off at the end of term assembly.

On the football pitch this week our senior teams took on their counterparts at Abingdon School. The games were hugely competitive and played at a high standard, with APS coming away with 3 wins out of 4. Our U8s and U9s competed as mixed age groups teams against Moulsford this week and it was great to see the smiling faces of our children after their enjoyable matches on Tuesday.

The pupils involved in our art workshop last weekend produced some fantastic ocean inspired clay coil pots which they should be very proud of. I know they thoroughly enjoyed learning a new skill whilst producing such impressive pieces.

We are looking forward to welcoming prospective families to our Open Morning tomorrow, and I know that our Year 7 pupils will do a brilliant job touring them around, answering their questions and sharing their experiences of life at APS with them.

I hope you all enjoy the weekend when it arrives.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 23 January 2025

Dear Parents

I hope that you have all had a good week. It has been a very enjoyable week at school with lots going on as always.

Tuesday saw 13 children from Years 4 to 8 travel to Abingdon School for their musical ‘Make a Noise’ day. This involved 107 children from six schools coming together to learn a number of orchestral pieces and perform them at the end of day in a concert. The children enjoyed themselves immensely and benefited from some excellent tuition, performing beautifully alongside their peers from other schools in the concert. There won’t be too many occasions where you get to play in an orchestra 107 people strong!

Our assemblies this week focused on the topics of democracy, linking in to the inauguration of the new American president, and volunteering. It was great to hear from 6R about their views on volunteering and what impact that giving your time to something can have, both on those being supported and also those who give their time.

On Wednesday morning it was lovely to be joined by a number of pupils from Years 2 to 6 to take part in the RSPB Big Schools’ Birdwatch. Whilst enjoying a hot chocolate and croissant, the children spotted nine different species of bird with crows, wood pigeons and blue tits topping the list. It was a terrific way to start the day listening to the dawn chorus as the sun came up and contributing to the recording of important data to track the numbers and different species of birds across the country.

Year 4 are busy at Ufton Manor today further developing and bringing to life their study of Tudor Times. It is a hugely impressive Tudor manor house which they will be exploring with secret passageways, previously used to hide Catholic priests, and they will be trying on Tudor costumes, finding out more about life in Tudor England and even playing detective trying to solve a Tudor mystery. I know they will have learnt a huge amount from bringing their history topic to life.

On the sports pitch this week our U8 and U9s got their football seasons underway and showed some excellent skills and tenacity, with lots of goals and competitive fixtures being enjoyed. Our U10s and U11s all played as well this week and came away with a fairly even split of wins and losses. We also had five hockey matches for our Year 7 and 8 groups, their first of the season, which were hugely enjoyable and resulted in 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw.

Good luck to our U11 Hockey team playing in the county championship tournament tomorrow, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the sea themed coil clay bowls that the pupils attending our Saturday Art workshop will be creating.

I hope you all have a good weekend ahead and stay safe during Storm Éowyn.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 16 January 2025

Dear Parents

Another action packed week is drawing to a close and it has been great to see the children working hard both in and out of the classroom.

The focus in our assemblies this week has been on resilience and acts of courage. It was very interesting to hear the children’s thoughts on what courage looks like and how children and adults can show courage both in school and more widely in life. They also saw a very moving video about Olympic athlete, Asha Philip, and how she had to recover from a career ending trampoline knee injury aged 17 to go on to become an Olympic medallist, showing unbelievable resilience on her journey to recovery, before changing sports to become a world class athlete.

In the classroom it was great to see Year 3 making adjectival agreements in their study of family trees, alongside learning a range of vocabulary for close family members. This week Year 6 have been carrying out investigations using separation techniques to produce pure salt from rock salt. They needed to grind, dissolve, filter and heat to evaporate the solution before producing pure salt, something they were clearly very much enjoying. Year 8 geographers are currently working on a unit about conflict geography, and I was treated to a discussion about Sudan’s ongoing conflict and why this is not nearly as visible in UK and world news as other conflicts that are currently taking place around the globe. I was hugely impressed with their contributions about the role played by oil, political aid, government overseas policies and the consideration of what being allies means in this context.

On Wednesday our Year 1s thoroughly enjoyed their visit to the Story Museum in Oxford where they were immersed in a range of stories, hearing about mythical creatures, whispering forests, and then they had to work as a group to create their own story. Armed with these new skills and ideas, they will be putting together their own version of Little Red Riding Hood in the coming days. A busy week for Pre-Prep concludes with a drama workshop for them all tomorrow and I know they are very much looking forward to this.

On the football pitch, matches started in earnest this week and all the pupils in Year 3-8 were involved. It was an especially impressive start for our U12A and U13A teams who managed to secure very impressive wins against extremely strong opposition in Caldicott. Our U8 and U9 children were hugely excited earlier about their first matches taking place this afternoon. Good luck too to our U13 hockey team who are playing the county tournament tomorrow.

On Wednesday next week, we are participating in the RSPB Big Birdwatch, so if any of your children would like to join me between 7.30-8am down in Forest School, we will be counting the different species seen in our forest school area before reporting our findings to the RSPB. There may even be a cup of hot chocolate for those attending to help stay warm!

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 9 January 2025

Dear Parents

It has been lovely to welcome the children back to school this week and hear all about their exciting Christmas holidays. I have especially enjoyed finding out what some of the children’s favourite presents were. It was the first return to school I can recall with snow falling as everyone made their way in on the first day!

In the classroom, Year 5 started the term in French with the ‘Galette des Rois’, a French tradition derived from Roman times where the Romans would choose a slave to be King for the day. A cake was baked with a lucky charm inside. During the banquet, the cake would be divided into the number of people present and the person receiving the lucky charm would be the king. One lucky Year 5 pupil found the charm in our cake and got to make some very important decisions throughout the day. They really enjoyed this and also got to eat some delicious cake as well!

8R have been working incredibly hard in the lead up to their mock scholarship exams, and we wish them all the best when they sit these next week. As Mr Windsor and I walked round school this morning popping into lessons, it was great to see how focused the children were in all the classrooms, working hard and undoubtedly learning much about the topics at hand.

Our first class pairings took place this morning, with shared reading being undertaken by the children across year groups. This is one of my favourite activities as it is lovely to hear the children talk so enthusiastically about the books they are reading and enjoying and for our older children to read to the younger ones, and hear them read as well.

Over forty Year 5, 6, 7 and 8 children attended our pre-season football training on Friday last week to prepare for the season ahead. Football is a very strong sporting discipline for Abingdon Prep and there was much skill and endeavour on show, both at pre-season and in our first games lessons across all year groups. I know the children and their coaches are very much looking forward to the first matches next week.

Reception and Year 1 started their term of PE with a brilliant snowball lesson, mirroring the weather outside, by using white balloons to improve their hand eye coordination with keepy uppies and alternate shots, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend ahead and that it doesn’t get too much colder!

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 12 December 2024

Dear Parents

It has been a lovely week in school with so many Christmas celebrations and events taking place. Today has seen Christmas come to life with our amazing Gifts for Grown Ups taking place. The children thoroughly enjoyed choosing presents for their family and who knows what you might have under the tree this year?! I cannot thank our amazing JPA volunteers enough for their efforts to prepare for and run this event. It is a huge logistical undertaking and enormously appreciated by the whole APS community.

I must also take this opportunity to thank our fantastic catering team. They produced a wonderful Christmas lunch today, turkey with all the trimmings, which was very much enjoyed and appreciated by the children and the staff.

I was enormously impressed with the selection of Christmas jumpers on display today, and the children enjoyed their section parties as well. Even more impressive were the brilliant Year 7 tycoon stalls, selling all sorts of wares from their stalls, after planning their business enterprises from scratch. All the money raised by them will then be donated to charity. It is a great opportunity for the children to learn some entrepreneurial skills and I am sure that many of them will one day run their own businesses after starting off so successfully today.

The week started with a great trip to Cogges Farm for Reception and a wonderful senior section carol concert. The children performed as year group choirs, ensembles, readers and soloists, and it was lovely to see them perform in front of so many parents and family members.

If you get the opportunity tomorrow, please do check out the ‘Term in pictures’ on our website. I will be sharing this with the children in our end of term assembly. It is a great way to remind ourselves of all the amazing things that the children have been involved with since September.

Finally, I want to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and I hope you enjoy spending time with friends and family in the coming weeks. I also want to thank you for your ongoing support of Abingdon Prep.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 5 December 2024

Dear Parents

It is hard to believe that we have almost reached our final week of term. It really is starting to feel very Christmassy at school with the trees up and decorated and classrooms starting to fill with decorations too.

The children have been rehearsing for their respective carol services this week, with our middle section children performing this evening at school whilst our senior section service is on Monday evening at St Helen’s Church in Abingdon. These concerts are such a lovely way to round off the term and truly begin the Christmas celebrations.

My highlight of the week so far was the absolutely fantastic Nativity put on by our Pre-Prep children yesterday afternoon. They performed so confidently to a full house and it was great to see them enjoying being on stage and singing and dancing with so much energy and enthusiasm.

At the end of last week, the Year 5 and 6 Pantomime, ‘Aladdin’, was equally amazing, and it was wonderful to see so many of the children enjoying being involved in our performing arts program.

Pre-Prep continued their busy week today with a trip to Roves Farm. They have been enjoying Christmas on the farm, making reindeer food, crafting with elves, meeting the animals and they may even get to see Santa in his grotto!

This week saw the final rugby matches of the season take place for our Year 5s to 8s. The children have improved so much over the course of the term and it has been lovely to be able to offer a combination of contact and touch to all the pupils to further their enjoyment of the sport.

I wanted to pass on that Rachel Whitmore, after 9 years of teaching at Abingdon Prep, will be leaving us at the end of this term to start an exciting new career as a family pastor in her local church. I know you will want to wish her all the best with this new adventure. She will be greatly missed.

I hope you all have a good weekend ahead and that everyone is looking forward to even more exciting activities in the final week of term!

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 28 November 2024

Dear Parents

Storm Bert certainly brought us some rain over the weekend and with Storm Conall following quickly after, I hope that everyone has managed to avoid the flooding on the way to and from school. That said, our Year 7 and 8 rugby matches last weekend were excellent affairs, even given the rather tricky conditions the children were playing in.

At school, it was great to have the house shoe stacking competition taking place on Tuesday. There were some very impressive towers created by all of the groups in their respective houses and I can announce that Unicorn won with a remarkable height of 1 metre!

Our whole school Big Think took place on Wednesday with a festive and thoughtful theme, looking at the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and also thinking about the journeys that refugees take today across so many parts of the world. The children responded through a variety of tasks and it was good to see and hear their reflections on this topic.

On Monday afternoon, our orchestra joined forces with some extremely talented pupils from Abingdon School orchestra; this was a great opportunity for our pupils to play alongside their more experienced peers. I know they enjoyed the afternoon and it was a great learning opportunity.

St Hugh’s were our opponents in rugby matches this week and there were some very close games with a remarkable 11-11 draw for the U10s and great commitment shown from children across all year groups, whether they were playing touch or contact games. Congratulations also to our U13 footballers who topped their group last weekend at the St George’s Park football tournament and then went on to win The Bowl competition against some terrific footballing schools.

I am looking forward to welcoming Year 5 and 6 parents into school this evening to watch the children in their pantomime, Aladdin. They have been rehearsing extremely hard and I know that the audience will be in for a treat if the dress rehearsal is anything to go by. The children are genuinely looking forward to the performance.

I hope you all have a good weekend ahead, as we enter the final two weeks of term.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 21 November 2024

Dear Parents

It appears that winter has arrived this week! Waking up to a light covering of snow on Tuesday morning was very exciting and whilst rather cold, the crisp air and blue skies and beautiful sunrises of today and yesterday have made the school and our wonderful grounds look fantastic. A hat and a coat have been useful accessories mind you!

It has been good to see so many children, and parents, browsing through the Book Fair this week. Books and stories are such a wonderful way to develop creativity, knowledge and imagination and I know the children will love reading the new books they have chosen.

In the classroom this week, Year 7 has been looking at the very real issue of climate change and the effect this is having on extreme weather events. It has been so encouraging to hear them discussing some of the actions that countries will need to take to slow down the current rate of warming and reduce gas emissions, and finding out more about COP29 being held in Baku currently.

The children in Years 3-8 listened intently this morning to a brilliant assembly from Katy about design and the positive impact that it has had for disabled people. There was a fantastic section about the design of prosthetics, traced back to a wooden toe discovered on an Egyptian mummy from 3000 years ago, all the way through to the newest running blade technologies for athletes who have lost a limb. Who knows what designs and products some of our children will develop in the coming years.

Finally, good luck to our U13 football team who are spending the weekend at St George’s Park, the training centre of the England football team, to compete in a football tournament against a number of other prep schools. Good luck too to our U12 and U13 rugby players who are combining with their counterparts at Abingdon School for joint foundation fixtures against RGS Guildford on Saturday. These are always enjoyable matches, teaming up with and getting to know each other before they combine as one cohort in Year 9.

I very much look forward to chatting with some of you at our coffee morning tomorrow if you are able to attend.

Best wishes

Craig Williams
Head

Thursday 14 November 2024

Dear Parents

We started this week with a beautifully observed 2 minute silence for our Remembrance Service. Huge thanks to Rohan in Year 8 and Russell for playing ‘The Last Post’ and ‘The Reveille’ on their trumpets. It is always a moving occasion and an opportunity to reflect on those who have given, and continue to give, their lives in service of their countries.

On Monday, a wide range of animals, of the cuddly toy variety, made their way into Reception with their owners for the Teddy Bear hospital experience. They were shown how to treat all sorts of injuries by Selina, an APS parent and doctor, and they had a wonderful time doing it, learning so much as they went along.

Tuesday was Odd Socks Day, in support of anti-bullying week. The theme this year is about respect and in both the Pre-Prep and Prep assemblies, we explored what respect looks like and gave examples of how to react to situations where respect was not being shown. Today, 5D gave a super class assembly to the school sharing their ideas about respect and exploring when banter becomes bullying. They had also interviewed and recorded interviews with certain staff to garner their opinions on this important topic which they played on the big screen.

On the rugby pitch this week, I was lucky enough to see our Year 3 and 4s in their triangular matches on Tuesday. It was very encouraging to see our Year 3s passing the ball so well and showing excellent potential. The Year 4s worked really hard with their passing and tackling and it was great to see them enjoying themselves and playing as a team. The same can be said of our older pupils too, who performed admirably in their fixtures, coming away with a raft of hard fought victories.

Over half term the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, confirmed in the Budget the Government’s intention to apply VAT to independent school fees from January 2025 and to remove business rates relief for independent schools in April 2025. You may have heard that this triggered a decision by the Independent Schools Council to take legal action against the VAT decision and I am sharing today an announcement from the HMC (Heads’ Conference) giving further information about this. Please see the item here.

I hope the children joining our art workshop on Saturday have a great time and I look forward to seeing their 3D typography blended cityscapes. I hope you all enjoy the weekend when it arrives.

Best wishes

Craig